Publications Based on SOEP Data: SOEPlit

Some Econometric Evidence on the Effectiveness of Active Labour Market Programmes in East Germany

In this paper we summarise our previous results on the effectiveness of different kinds of labour market training programmes as well as employment programmes in East Germany after unification. All the studies use the microeconometric evaluation approach and are based on different types of matching estimators. We find some positive earnings effect for on-the-job training and also some positive employment ...

Public Sector Sponsored Continuous Vocational Training in East Germany: Institutional Arrangements, Participants, and Results of Empirical Evaluations

Educational Assortative Mating and Household Income Inequality

We document the degree of educational assortative mating, how it evolves over time, and the extent to which it differs between countries. Our analysis focuses on the United States but also uses data from Denmark, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Norway. We find evidence of positive assortative mating at all levels of education in each country. However, the time trends vary by the level of education: ...

Assessing Intergenerational Earnings Persistence Among German Workers

'Die Vitalität und Stabilität der Demokratie - auch der Wirtschaft - hängen letztlich eminent von der Durchlässigkeit der Gesellschaft ab.' (Horst Köhler, Bundespräsident, 29. 12. 2007)In dieser Studie wird die Frage der Durchlässigkeit der Gesellschaft, die nach Ansicht des Bundespräsidenten (siehe Eingangszitat) eine wichtige Grundlage der Vitalität und Stabilität der Demokratie ist, empirisch ...

Integrating Refugees: Insights from the Past: Editorial

Half of the refugees in Germany found their first job through social contacts

In Germany, the majority of people tend to find work through friends, acquaintances, and relatives when they first enter the labor market or switch jobs. The same applies to immigrants and their offspring. Integrating refugees into the labor market is considered crucial to their overall integration into society, yet little is known about how they land their first jobs. The present paper attempts to ...

Associations between Neighborhood Characteristics, Well-Being and Health Vary over the Life Course

Background: Neighborhood characteristics are important determinants of individual health and well-being. For example, characteristics such as noise and pollution affect health directly, while other characteristics affect health and well-being by either providing resources (e.g. social capital in the neighborhood), which individuals can use to cope with health problems, or limiting the use thereof (e.g. ...

Add-On Premiums Increase Price Transparency - More Policy Holders Switch Health Plans

The German health care reform implemented in 2009 led to a considerable increase in price transparency within the statutory health insurance (SHI) (Gesetzliche Krankenversicherung, GKV) system and also made it more consumer-friendly which, in turn, has encouraged policy holders to react to price hikes by switching to a different health insurance fund ("sickness fund"). In 2009, the government ...

Analyzing Regional Variation in Health Care Utilization Using (Rich) Household Microdata

This paper exploits rich SOEP microdata to analyze state-level variation in health care utilization in Germany. Unlike most studies in the field of the Small Area Variation (SAV) literature, our approach allows us to net out a large array of individual-level and state-level factors that may contribute to the geographic variation in health care utilization. The raw data suggest that state-level hospitalization ...

Examining the structure of spatial health effects in Germany using Hierarchical Bayes Models

This paper makes use of Hierarchical Bayes Models to model and estimate spatial health effects. We focus on Germany, combining rich individual-level household panel data with administrative county–level information to estimate spatial county-level health dependencies. As dependent variable, we use the generic, continuous, and quasi-objective SF12 health measure. Our findings reveal strong and highly ...